But doesn’t Scripture say “all have sinned”?

In his letter to the Romans, Paul says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). However, this does not mean that Mary was a sinner. Why? For a number of reasons. First, “all have sinned” cannot include Jesus, so if Jesus is an exception then Mary can be as well. Second, in Romans 5:19, Paul says “many” (not all) were made sinners, which demonstrates that when Paul says “all,” he really means many. Third, the Greek word for “all” in Romans 3:23 is the same word that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 15:22 when he says, “all have died.” But Scripture says Enoch and Elijah didn’t die but were translated into heaven, which means that when Paul says “all” he does not mean every single one.

Fourth, Paul cannot mean every single person born into the world has sinned because infants, the senile and the mentally handicapped cannot sin (or at least aren’t culpable for their sin). Fifth and finally, in Romans 3:23, Paul really means that all people are subject to Original Sin. The difference between us and Mary is that God chose to free Mary from Original Sin at the moment of her conception, while he frees us from Original Sin at the moment of our baptism.

Mary’s redemption, like ours, is based entirely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, which God applied in advance to Mary, just as He did with the Old